CHALLENGE:
An international non-governmental organisation faced a major challenge to its ability to effectively deliver its global offer. The organisation’s front-line service was made up of two teams: a rapid response team and a team focused on longer-term community support. It was viewed as essential that the two teams should work co-operatively and communicate quickly and effectively with each other. Due to the very different nature of their roles (i.e. emergency response vs. development & capacity-building), there was perhaps an unsurprising difference between the mindset and culture of the two teams, and between those of the two leaders, that had created a tension between them. Unfortunately, because this conflict had not been adequately addressed over a period of several years, it had become deeply ingrained and was viewed by many as being insurmountable. Things had reached a crisis point, with the teams being described by others as ‘being at war’. The bad tempered email and increasingly frequent public displays of conflict had got to such a state that the secretary general now feared for the reputation of this critical operation.

SOLUTION:
Bill Phillips Consulting Ltd was commissioned to work with the two teams to develop a mutually agreeable vision for their service, and to help them to build new supportive and harmonious relationships that would help them to achieve their shared vision. In partnership with the secretary general, Bill Phillips developed a conflict resolution programme. The programme commenced with a day’s preparation in the form of a series of individual and small group meetings. This allowed Bill to get to the heart of the matter and to also start building trust with the 17 individuals involved. This pre-work was followed by a residential programme with the two teams, who were together for a total of three days and were committed to resolving the conflict. However the starting point for each team was a belief that the problem stemmed from the others – not themselves – and hence a belief that it was the other team that needed to change. The event had to be carefully and sensitively managed to allow individuals safely to express their frustrations and anger, whilst at the same time ensuring that the group moved rapidly towards tangible and positive, shared outcomes. The programme consisted of creating a shared vision for a successful outcome to the programme; an exploration of internal and external relationships and the importance of co-operative working between the two teams. The two teams were also encouraged to look at the strengths of the other team and what they could learn from each other. A challenge for team members was to listen to colleagues’ feedback without interruption and without trying to justify or defend their position. Each activity carefully and skilfully built upon the preceding one, and it was only on day three that the group immersed themselves in Future-basing, exploring what their team would be like once it was operating as one effective and highly successful operation.

OUTCOME:
Following the programme, the teams went back to their organisation and issued a press release describing the new face of their global operation and how they would be performing over the next three years. This put the two teams firmly in the spotlight for all to see and highlighted their intent to make the situation work. To the delight of the secretary general, there was no further conflict between the two teams and they were able to more effectively and successfully focus on their core business.